“All I’m saying is I heard a rumor Shatner was going to be here, and…”

Whatever else Michael was about to say was cut off as one of the most beautiful women Liam had ever seen appeared in front of him in the hotel lobby.

She wore a formfitting outfit that’d carved a groove deep in his psyche as a young man when he’d first seen Vampire Vixens From Planet X! on a beat up old VHS he’d discovered in the deep dark corners of his parents’ basement.

She looked like a sexy Han Solo. Like not actually Han Solo, the dudes never did anything for Liam for all that he respected anyone who walked that path, but more the idea of the lovable Han Solo type rogue that’d taken hold in the ‘80s channeled into a sexy costume for women.

She wore a leather crop top with lots of skin showing above and below, and a distractingly tight pair of shorts complete with two blasters at her side.

She turned and looked at him, and he grinned. That made her stumble just a bit, staring and then looking down at herself like she was surprised to find herself in that costume, and he wondered if he’d done something wrong. Sure she was in cosplay, but cosplay wasn’t consent and all that. He was well aware some people got tired of being stared at all day long.

He’d endured some of that himself since he spent enough time in the gym to pull off superhero costumes without any added padding. He’d discovered, much to his delight at first and eventual annoyance as the weekend wore on, that women could be just as bad as men about trying to cop a feel when they were getting a picture with a cosplayer.

He didn’t get a chance to find out whether this particular cosplayer’s stumble was an annoyed or interested stumble, though. No, a vampire vixen stepped between them and hit him with a seductive grin even as he tried looking past her to the woman he was really interested in.

The vixen opened her mouth revealing fangs that looked like something out of the Halloween section of a local drugstore around the middle of November when all but the saddest clearance items had been picked over.

“Hello there, my pretty,” she hissed, giving him an up and down that might’ve had him interested if he wasn’t still trying to catch a glimpse of that sexy rogue. “Imagine seeing a tasty morsel such as yourself at a convention like this.”

He craned his neck to see around her, but the sexy rogue had disappeared. There was nowhere she could’ve hidden in the sparse crowd dotting the hotel lobby, yet she was gone. He sighed. So much for that moment they may or may not have shared.

“Hey, buddy,” the vampire said, dropping the seductive act. “I’m trying to do a thing here. Could you at least pretend to be scared?”

Liam hit the nice lady in the formfitting sparkly outfit that looked like a cross between tinfoil and ‘50s retro futurist chic with a goofy grin.

“I mean that’s not the greatest pickup line I’ve ever heard, but we could work something out over a couple of drinks if you want,” he said, winking.

“Please,” Rick said.

Liam turned to see his “friend” crossing his arms and glaring. No doubt Rick was upset that Liam was getting attention from the fairer sex, but whatever. That was hardly a new development.

“Attention people of earth!” a voice boomed through the massive hotel lobby. “You are in grave danger!”

People looked around with a mixture of worry and confusion. Meanwhile Liam couldn’t help but grin as a few more women, and at least one dude, dressed as Galactic Enforcers complete with prop visors that were supposedly impossible to see through when the movie was filmed but had been improved upon so they were actually usable by enterprising amateur prop makers in the decades since, stepped into the hotel lobby.

Their outfits looked similar to the vampire vixen in front of Liam, though theirs were more robotic. At least they looked like what costume designers in the mid-80s had thought costume designers from the early ‘50s thought robotic looked like.

Someone was clearly paying attention to detail when they put together those outfits. They were sleek black with lines of white and blue running all over. The lines didn’t glow like in the Vampire Vixens movie, though that could be forgiven since he was pretty sure that was something that’d been added to the costumes via animation in postproduction.

Supposedly that animation had been one of the most expensive part of the movie’s budget.

The Galactic Enforcers moved in and started fighting with the vampire vixens, including the one in front of Liam. Which got really interesting a couple of times when it looked like the two beautiful women having it out were one torn strap away from having a very interesting wardrobe malfunction.

“Now this is the stuff!” Michael said.

“Please,” Anna said, smacking him. “Remember you’re here with someone.”

“And I tried to get you to wear one of those outfits!” he said.

One of the vampire vixens flew past Liam and slammed into the ground, doing a roll that wouldn’t have been out of place in the original Star Trek. The only thing missing was a boulder that pressed in on impact revealing it was made out of foam rather than solid rock.

“Get down, civilians!” one of the Galactic Enforcers growled.

Liam looked around the room. He figured it was a pretty obvious tell things weren’t nearly as dire as the Galactic Enforcers wanted them to think it was that hotel security was standing around looking like hotel security always did at these conventions: bored out of their gourds.

They looked at the demonstration like they’d rather not have this shit going on in their convention center and hotel, but they had to play along with the nice paying customers who were a little weirder than the usual business types.

“Anna’s right. Let’s get going,” Michael said, suddenly sounding sour on the idea of staying for the full show. Liam figured getting in trouble with his girlfriend had something to do with it.

“Come on,” Rick said. “We don’t have to leave right away, do we?”

He stared at the demonstration with rapt attention, and he clapped as one of the lady Galactic Enforcers appeared in front of them. Though that grin quickly turned to a frown as one of the male Galactic Enforcers stepped between her and Rick.

Unlike the lady Galactic Enforcers in formfitting outfits that didn’t leave much to the imagination, the male outfits didn’t leave anything to the imagination.

Vampire Vixens From Planet X! had been heavily influenced by Conan, and the male Galactic Enforcer outfit consisted of bare chests, a sparkly loincloth, and not much else.

Though the guy standing before them was a little more doughy than the Schwarzenegger stand ins who’d starred in that cult classic.

“Happy to assist you, earthling!” the guy said, glancing at Rick and then blinking when he realized Rick was glaring at him.

Rick hit the Galactic Enforcer with a one fingered salute. The enforcer’s response was to raise his prop sword, a sure sign of a cosplayer who’d lost it.

“For the galaxy!” the enforcer shouted, brandishing his sword that was clearly a fake.

That obvious fakery didn’t stop the security guard closest to them from springing into action, though she looked like she wasn’t happy about leaving her spot against the wall, and grabbing the guy’s hand as soon as it became clear he’d gone rogue.

They started arguing over whether or not the enforcer could wield a sword that was clearly a prop, and Liam figured that was a good time to get out of there before Rick got them pulled into an altercation with con security.

“We should go check on our reservations,” Liam said.

“Good idea,” Michael said. “This place looks like it’s filling up.”

“Totally,” Liam said, taking a look at the crowds all around them.

There was something slightly off about the crowd this year. Which had everything to do with the massive posters hanging all over the hotel lobby and outside the convention center advertising the Sparklefang event.

“I can’t believe we have to put up with this crap at our convention,” Rick said.

“Believe it,” Liam said, looking up at the massive banner running down the side of the lobby. It matched banners that’d been up on billboards around the city for the past couple of months.

Liam wasn’t exactly happy that they were staring up at the sparkly visage of Jacob Grey, better known to the world and his legions of screaming fangirls as the vampire heartthrob/superhero Sparklefang.

“It’s bad enough people talk about those movies like they’re actual comic book movies,” Rick said. He scowled at Jacob’s banner now rather than at the Galactic Enforcers doing their cosplay demonstration.

“Gatekeeping much?” Liam asked.

“What?” Rick said, sounding defensive. “Those stupid books give real comic books a bad name, and you know it!”

“Yeah,” Liam said, rolling his eyes. “Because there are so many normal things that happen in regular comic books that don’t hold a candle to a sparkling vampire superhero fighting evil.”

“He’s got a point,” Anna said. “That wouldn’t even register in the top ten weird things Batman has done.”

“He doesn’t have a point, and I’d ask you to keep Batman out of this,” Rick said with a sniff. “Comic books are a legitimate form of art, and this vampire shit is tweeny pop bullshit masquerading as legitimate comic book art invading our convention.”

“And before Robert Downey Jr. and John Favreau saved comic books by turning them into movies people actually wanted to see, comic books were just as ridiculous as anything you’d see in Sparklefang,” Liam continued, not willing to concede the point. “Come on. There’s legit a comic about a swamp creature that took on another man’s memories after it absorbed him.”

“And the ‘80s Swamp Thing movies along with the Alan Moore reboot are masterpieces of the genre,” Rick said. “Which is more than I can say about a movie that throws a bunch of glitter on fucking vampires and turns them into teen heartthrobs! I actually saw that asshole on the cover of Lion Beat once!”

Anna giggled.

“What’s so damn funny?” Rick asked.

“Do you spend a lot of time looking at magazines designed for the consumption of twelve-year-old girls?” she asked.

“Shut up,” he said. “I just saw it in passing on a magazine stand.”

“I’m amazed you saw a magazine stand at all in this day and age,” Liam said. “That magazine sounds like the kind of thing you have to really go looking for.”

“Whatever,” Rick muttered. “I don’t have to take this abuse.”

“You don’t have to take it,” Liam said. “And we don’t have to hang around you if you’re going to be a gatekeeping asshole.”

“Oh my God!” a girl squealed from beside them, as though on cue to maximize Rick’s irritation. “Sparklefang is so hot! Way better than stupid Iron Man or Superman, or whoever’s in those silly Marvel movies.”

“Come on,” Rick muttered. “Iron Man is clearly Marvel and Superman is clearly DC, and anyone who doesn’t know the difference is an example of what I’m talking about with these teenyboppers invading our convention!”

“The door’s over there,” Liam said with a shrug. “I’d be more than happy to have a hotel room all to myself this weekend. I can afford the room on my own.”

Rick stood there seething, but Liam brushed it off. It’s not like it took much to set Rick off. Especially when his favorite local convention had been overrun by a bunch of twentysomethings who’d been teens and tweens when Sparklefang first became popular, and the teens and tweens who were still discovering the joys of Sparklefang to this day once the hormones kicked in.

“Come on,” Liam said, trying to sound like the voice of reason. “It’s not like this is a bad thing. It’s just a matter of perspective.”

“What perspective could possibly make this anything but the disaster it is?” Rick asked.

Liam looked around the hotel lobby. It was full of attractive women dressed in Sparklefang attire looking super excited to be at the con.

“Maybe if you took some time to stop gatekeeping and actually look at the convention around us you’d see there are plenty of college and young professional women here to relive old memories, dust off some of their old Sparklefang fanfiction, and have a good time.”

“Your point?” Rick asked.

“His point, doofus, is there are going to be a lot of women at the convention and at the parties after hours, they’re all going to be hopped up on the thought of getting to meet Jacob Grey, and maybe you can capitalize on that,” Anna said, spelling it out when Rick clearly couldn’t read between the lines right in front of him.

“I know I’m looking to capitalize on it!” Michael said, grinning.

That earned him a snack from Anna, and he looked at her like he was insulted.

“I mean you’re going to be one of those ladies getting all worked up thanks to Jacob Grey, and I’m going to reap all the benefits!”

“Sure that’s what you meant,” she said. “But it’s not like I’m making you put on glitter lotion before we fuck,” she said.

“I mean if you were into that then I’d do it for you,” he said. “That’s important in a relationship. You have to be willing to go there for your partner. You know, you have to…”

“I’m not wearing that stupid vampire vixen cosplay, and that’s that. They’re way more expensive than something I want to wear to get it on with you once.”

“Who said it had to be just once?” Michael asked.

“Have you seen how cheap those costumes look? We’ll be lucky if that thin fabric makes it through me putting it on, let alone you ripping it…”

“The point is,” Liam said, steering the conversation away from his friends’ sex life. “There are going to be a lot of ladies here this weekend getting hot and bothered and looking to relive the good old days when the worst thing they had to worry about was whether Sparklefang or a werewolf with a six pack would get the girl.”

“Sometimes they wrote fanfictions where both got the girl. Some of the best ones they didn’t need the girl at all for a good time,” Anna said, licking her lips with a far off look that left Liam wondering if she’d maybe written some of those fanfictions back in the day.

If that was the case then she’d be far from the only one. There were supposedly even a few events dedicated to reading old fanfictions if someone was brave enough to share.

Liam figured Kevin Smith had been right on with his prophetic talk to a comic con crowd out at the big one in San Diego years ago. Sparklefang had brought a lot of women into the geeky convention milieu, and anything that brought more ladies in was fine with him.

Especially the ones who wore skimpy cosplay like the space pirate in leather he’d seen earlier. He did another quick scan of the room to see if she was around, but came up with nothing.

Damn.

“Whatever,” Rick said, refusing to play nice. “You’ll see. The con is going to be ruined this year, and it’s all because of those vampire obsessed idiots.”

“Misogynistsayswhat?” Anna said.

“What?” Rick asked.

“Exactly,” Anna said.

“Anyway,” Liam said as they walked towards check-in. “It’s not going to be all that bad even with the Sparklefang crowd. The Sparklefang stuff also means they’re putting on other vampire related things. If it weren’t for Sparklefang we wouldn’t be getting the retrospective on Vampire Vixens From Planet X!”

“Is that what those costumes were?” Rick asked. “That campy old movie from the ‘80s? The one where alien vampires try to take over the world in between having the kind of orgies that makes old late night Cinemax movies look XXX in comparison?”

“I figured you’d be familiar with that kind of movie,” Liam said with a grin.

Rick looked between all of them like they’d lost their minds.

“Oh come on,” Liam said. “It’s a classic of the genre! Not to mention Helena Howard was the kind of woman that could save my world, if you catch my drift.”

“She was a hottie,” Anna said.

“Really now?” Michael said, wiggling his eyebrows at her.

“Keep dreaming,” Anna said.

“Anything can happen at a con,” Michael said with a shrug.

“The point is they wouldn’t be having a Vampire Vixens retrospective if it weren’t for all the Sparklefang people creating enough of a draw for the vampire crowd that they could add other programming that wouldn't normally go.”

“The man has a point,” Michael said. “The money from all those women thirsty for Jacob Grey in glitter lotion is paving the way for more interesting niche programming.”

“Well no matter who’s here, we’re home,” Anna said, looking around the place and taking in a deep breath.

“We are home,” Liam said, taking in a deep breath of his own.

There was always a certain smell to these conventions that took him back to some of the best memories he’d ever made.

It was the smell of vacuum formed plastic from costumes people had painstakingly constructed in their garages or basements. The smell of dust from old collectibles that’d been sitting in booths for decades.

It was the smell of a combination hotel and convention center that’d been scrubbed with a healthy dose of industrial-strength cleaning fluid. It was the slightly sour smell of people who thought the laws of hygiene didn’t apply to them when they walked through the doors to a convention, but he could deal with that.

The point was, it was home, and Liam couldn’t help but feel a twinge of excitement as he took in that breath and thought about all the fun they were going to have over the three day weekend.

“So are we checking in or what?” Anna asked.

“You know it,” Liam said.

“Fuck,” Rick said. “It’s already started. Would you look at that?”

Liam turned to follow Rick’s gaze, and his mouth fell open. Rick was staring at a group of pretty college girls wearing glitter lotion and not much else, which had been the outfit of choice for the heroine in some of the later Sparklefang movies.

All Liam could think was “damn” He was looking forward to this weekend if it was going to be like this!